


Being Alive

by Onefalsestep



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Better living through Sondheim, Broadway, Danny's dramatic streak goes to good use, M/M, Theater kid feels, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2020-02-23 20:05:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18709069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onefalsestep/pseuds/Onefalsestep
Summary: Isn't it warm? Isn't it rosy? Side by side by side...





	1. Side by Side (by Side)

 “You got me tickets, right?”

Casey rolled his eyes, his cell phone precariously balanced between his shoulder and ear as he maneuvered his way into his apartment with a shopping bag under his arm. “Yes, I got tickets. For you, Dana, Sam, Kim—everybody. I said I would, Natalie. You don’t have to call to check up on me.”

“Well, since _Daniel_ Rydell is now too big a star to return my texts, I have to rely on you—”

Casey’s groceries thudded down on the counter. “Leave Dan alone, Natalie. I’m not sure he would even know how to buy the tickets. His publicist took care of everything for me.”

Natalie’s answering sigh sounded unsettlingly orgasmic. “I wish _I_ had a publicist. Someone to order all my theater tickets and tend to the details of my fast-paced and glamorous lifestyle—“

"Nat, I’m sure you’re just as deserving of a publicist as Dan is, but can we wrap this up? I’ve got to make dinner.”

“Fine.” There was a pause. “What are you wearing?”

“ _Natalie_ —”

“To the show! Tuxedo, suit jacket, blazer? What color, what hue? I don’t want us all to clash but we shouldn’t look too match-y, we’re not a Girl Scout troop. ”

He thumped his forehead against the fridge door. “I don’t know. But I will notify you the second I decide, okay?”

“The second, McCall. We are not going to be the uncouth cable sports people who embarrass Dan in front of his New York theater friends and the L.A. crowd. We are going to look sleek, and sophisticated, and—“

“I’m hanging up now.”

He set his phone on the counter, Natalie’s voice still streaming up out of the little black rectangle, and thumbed the button that ended the call. Then he turned to the task of putting the groceries away in his meticulously ordered kitchen, in the same apartment he’d lived in ever since the divorce with Lisa. He’d always meant to find a nicer place—a more _permanent_ place—but somehow he’d settled in here, and moving in Manhattan seemed like too much of a hassle when the apartment he had was fine. He’d expected to find someone, anyway, someone who stuck, who he’d move in with, or who he’d endure the whole nightmarish house hunt with until they found a nice couple-friendly place in Brooklyn Heights or the West Village or wherever. But he never had. Fifteen years on since the divorce, and he was still living alone, a longtime bachelor staring down 50 with a doctor who told him he needed to start relying more on Lean Cuisine and less on takeout if he wanted to avoid his father’s heart issues.

 He sighed, and started stacking his readymade dinners in the freezer.

* * *

 

“People are _freaking. Out_.” Dana had caught up with him in the hallway to give him the news a few weeks earlier, even though he'd already seen it break on Twitter. “Daniel Rydell, back on Broadway. And in _Company_! You know he hasn’t done a show here since _Hamlet_? You remember how good he was?”

“I remember.”

“A revelation! A _regalecus glesne_!”

“Isn’t that a kind of fish?”

“Ah, but it is a king among fish, as Daniel Rydell is a king among men. Or so I remember Hilton Als saying at the time.”

Casey finally made it to his office, yanking open the door. “He was good. Very good. But I’ve got a script to write, and—”

“It’s running for three months.” Dana was standing in front of his desk, looking oddly intent.

“Okay.”

"Three months. So that means two months to rehearse, another month for previews, maybe some extra padding in there for press—”

“Why are we doing math problems here, Dana?”

“Because he’s coming back!” Dana sat down in the chair in front of Casey’s desk, her hands aflutter. “This is his longest stretch back in the city since, what, 2008? _Six months_. That’s half-a-year that you’ll have Danny in town.”

“And I’m thrilled, don’t get me wrong, but I still don’t see—“

She brought one palm down on the desk. “You’re in a rut, McCall. You’ve _been_ in a rut. For the past decade, at least. You don’t date, you don’t make new friends—”

“I date!”

“Sam and I _forcing_ you to go on a blind date twice a year doesn’t count. It never works out, and I get to hear you complain about how deficient my single female acquaintances are for weeks afterward. And your friends are the same friends you’ve had since 1998.”

“They’re good friends.”

“They are _excellent_ friends, and I’m proud to count myself among them. But, Casey—” She reached out, covering his hand with hers. “It hasn’t been the same. Ever since Danny left—”

He pulled back, rolling his eyes. “Not this again. Dana, I’m fine. Danny leaving—that was another lifetime. I’m not—”

“You fell apart.”

“I didn’t—”

“Casey—”

"I have a show to write.” He stared her down, and while few things frightened him more than Dana Whitaker at her most persistent, his glare won out. She blew out a breath, knocking a strand of blond hair away from her face.

“Okay.” She held up her hands in surrender. “Okay. You’re fine. I’m sure Dan coming back won’t disrupt your life in any way. I’m sure you won’t experience any submerged feelings—”

“Dana—”

“I’m going. This is me going, see?” She got to her feet, backing out of the room. “Write your show. Get it done. But then call Dan. He’ll want to hear how happy you are that he’s coming. Trust me, Casey. I don’t think New York’s that easy for him anymore.”

She shut the door, and Casey closed his eyes. If anyone asked, he’d call Dana his best friend in the world these days, but that didn’t keep him from wanting to strangle her.

He turned towards the keyboard, starting to type, and then gave up less than a minute later. He groaned, and reached for his cell phone, dialing Dan’s number. He still had the numbers of anyone he cared enough to call memorized: he’d had arguments many times with Lisa, Dana, and anyone else who stuck around long enough to listen about how woefully unprepared reliance on the iPhone was making them all for actual emergencies.

Dan picked up on the third ring. “Case?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s up?”

“I, uh—” Casey still wasn’t sure why he got tongue-tied talking to Dan sometimes, these days. Maybe it was seeing him on the cover of magazines at the drugstore, or hearing _Entertainment Tonight_ cover his newest film with breathless anticipation. But it was Danny, just Danny. Casey took a breath. “Dana tells me you’re coming to New York.”

“So you’re calling to see if Dana, the _Times_ , and _The Post_ all conspired on this unlikely rumor?”

“No, I mostly wanted to see how soon after you got in town we needed to plan an emergency trip to Katz’s to get you a real meal after all that salad you’ve been eating in L.A. Two days? Two hours? Immediately?”

Danny laughed. “I appreciate you considering my needs.” There was some kind of commotion on the other end of the line. “Listen—I’m on set and they’re calling me back, but I’ll shoot you an email in a bit and give you the rundown, okay? I want to spend plenty of time with you and the little guy, though I’m given to understand he’s not so little anymore.”

“The little guy is in fact about to graduate from NYU, so no, I don’t think he’d appreciate that designation.”

“Noted. Well, give him my best. Lisa, too.”

“Very funny.”

“I mean it! I just didn’t say my best what.”

“All right. Say hi to Anna for me.”

“I will. See you soon.”

With that, Danny was gone, and Casey was alone in his office, with a script to write and no time to ponder whether Dan had sounded weird. He always used to be able to tell. Or he thought he could, anyway. But it turned out Dan was an excellent actor, and in light of the last decade and a half, Casey wasn’t sure he could really say he knew much about Danny at all.


	2. You Could Drive a Person Crazy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So excited at the response to this first chapter! Thanks for coming with me on this slightly strange trip. This has been a niggling concept in my brain that just wouldn't let me go and was inspired in no small part by seeing Josh Charles on Broadway last year and thinking, hey, what if Dan Rydell had taken to the stage?

It had started out as a lark.

When Dan had first started talking about getting into theater, Casey had groaned inwardly, while trying not to give Danny any outward sign of how ridiculous he found the plan to be. They were less than two years past Draft Day, past almost losing the show, and barely three months out from the day that the foundations of their reality had been rocked by two planes flying into two seemingly unshakeable pillars of New York City. Dan’s moodiness had returned with a vengeance that fall, after a year or more of his mental health being on the upswing, and he was giving to bouts of grand, impulsive gestures alternated with spates of near-paralyzing depression. He had Abby to help him through it now, and a psychiatrist, but they were all living through extraordinary times, and no one could quite reassure Danny any more that the sense of impending doom he lived with was all in his head.

So Casey thought at first that the acting kick was another of Dan’s self-created distractions, his escape from the War on Terror and the horrors of the new millennium and the way they kept finding out people they knew had lost someone in the fall. When Dan wouldn’t shut up about it, though, Casey had accepted the fact that Dan was going to try it, and, like Jordan playing baseball, it would likely be a vaguely embarrassing experience they’d all attempt to forget with as little fuss as possible.

“You know I starred in _Pippin_ in high school,” Dan said, jogging alongside Casey as they made their way to the editing room with some tape they’d just filmed on-site at Madison Square Garden. “Youngest student ever cast as a lead. I was a freshman. Bobby Knickerman nearly killed me.”

“Because you stole his part?”

“No, because _her_ boyfriend didn’t get cast at all, and she was convinced it was my fault. Completely unreasonably, I should say. I wasn’t to blame for the way he couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.”

“I’m docking points for that idiom, it’s confusing and cliché.”

“I’m telling you, Case, this guy was unable to act his way out of any kind of paper product. Cereal boxes, envelopes, those boxes of little monogrammed notecards you can get for your desk—”

“Okay, okay.” They slipped into the editing room, Casey sliding into the seat in front of the monitor. “Bobby Knickerman’s high school boyfriend isn’t winning a Tony any time soon. What does this have to do with, you know, anything?”

Dan drew a deep breath, perching on the table beside Casey. “I want to get back into it.”

“ _Pippin_?”

“Acting.”

“Huh.” Casey kept his eyes trained on the screen. “When’s the last time you were on stage?”

 “Dartmouth.”

“Yeah?”

“I did some shows.”

“You did some shows.”

“Yeah, I did some shows.”

“Which shows?”

“They were original works.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Avant-garde.”

“I see.”

“I thought about majoring in theater.”

Casey did look up at that. He’d assumed, from the way Dan talked about it, that he’d been gunning for a sportscaster position since day one. Unlike Casey, who had accumulated enough credits in various areas of study that he could have picked from about five double majors, Dan talked about Dartmouth like everything he’d studied there had fed into his obsession with statistics and athletic analysis, like his English classes had largely been prerequisites to a career in writing pithy sports-related copy. “Seriously? You were almost a theater major?”

Dan wasn’t looking at him now. His gaze was fixed on the window of the editing room like something fascinating was happening beyond the glass. “I applied to a bunch of schools with great theater programs. Emerson. Tisch. I got in, but my dad refused to pony up his part of the bill if I spent college studying that ‘namby-pamby bullshit.’ And they didn’t have football teams, anyway. So: Dartmouth.” He swung one leg absently. “I had theater friends. They cast me in bit parts sometimes. It’s not like—I wasn’t able to commit to much, back then. At least not more than one thing at a time.”

Casey remembered. He’d met Danny the summer after Dan’s junior year in college, when he’d come out to L.A. to intern at the station Casey was working at out there. At first Casey had found Danny’s single-minded focus on sports journalism off-putting, especially when coupled with his social flakiness, like his tendency to bolt from after-work get-togethers. He’d assumed Dan was—well, Jeremy, basically. Neurotic, obsessive, and somewhat ill-equipped to navigate the wider world of human interaction. And while Casey had come to appreciate Jeremy in his own special way, it wasn’t like he was going to make the guy best man at his second wedding any time soon.

But then Dan had stuck around long enough to have a real conversation with Casey one night, and he’d realized the kid was brilliant. Funny, smart, and not awkward at all—in fact supremely charming, once he pushed the dark hair out of his eyes and had a couple of beers to calm his restlessness. Casey had seen something in him that summer, had recognized that with just a little coaxing, Dan could be good on camera. Maybe even great. He’d decided to overlook Dan’s multifarious quirks—it wasn’t like Casey didn’t have his own—and they’d been inseparable ever since.

Casey leaned back in his chair. He had to tread carefully, here. Slighting Dan’s feelings, even in jest, could lead to a black depression Dan might not emerge from for weeks. “So what’s the plan here? You talk your way into a part in _Rent_?”

“You think I’ve got the pipes for that?”

“It is true that I’ve only ever heard you sing along to Tom Waits—and that it always sounds like you’re imitating a garbage disposal—but you could have hidden talents. Isn’t _Pippin_ a musical?”

“It is, and among the finest and weirdest. But I’d want to try my hand at drama before incorporating a whole song and dance routine.”

“ _Glengarry Glen Ross_. _Angels in America_.”

"Possibly.”

“Huh.” Casey still couldn’t entirely read Danny’s tone. “And you’d do this, when? In the abundant free time you’ve got from, say, 8 to 11:30 a.m.?”

Dan wasn’t looking at him: never a good sign. “I was thinking I’d take a sabbatical.”

Casey stared. “You’re serious.”

“Six months. Just to see.”

“To see what, Danny?” Casey could feel the blood rushing into his cheeks, could feel the urge to grab Danny by the shoulders and shake sense into him taking over, but he held it back. Barely. Just barely. “To see if you want to act instead of continue with the successful and lucrative career you’ve built for yourself?”

“You’ve talked about getting out of it.”

“And you talked me back into it.”

“That was a different time. And you’re different. We’re—” Danny gestured back and forth between them, like maybe Casey didn’t get that they were two separate people. “We’re different.”

“Yeah.” Casey turned back to the computer screen. He wanted, more than anything, to fight Danny on this. To push back at him, push and shove and poke at him until he got at what was really underneath all of this, beneath this ludicrous plan. But they’d _just_ rebuilt things, all the way from the bottom up. They had to stop doing that. Had to stop getting a rise out of each other just because they knew they could, just because they sparked off of each other in that unique way.

Chemistry, after all, was a funny thing. It could convince millions of viewers to tune in just to watch you, night after night. Or it could blow the whole damn enterprise to pieces.

Danny was still watching him. Casey could feel his gaze, prickling the hairs on the back of Casey’s neck. “So should I do it? Would you hate me?”

Casey leaned his head back, closing his eyes, heaving an almighty sigh. “Danny. Let’s review. You hung me out to dry on live television, and I forgave you. Do you honestly think there’s _anything_ you could do to make me hate you if I didn’t hate you for that?”

“That’s the way my brain works, Case.” Casey opened his eyes just in time to see Dan cock a finger-gun against his head, and he fought the urge to grab Danny’s wrist, to draw the weapon down and render it harmless, imaginary though it might be. “I worry. I worry you’ll hate me. I worry Dana will hate me. I don’t worry so much about Natalie hating me, because I _know_ she’ll never forgive me. So can you just say it, on the record?”

Casey kept his eyes on Dan’s face. This: this had been the hardest part of the rebuilding, the long hard work of coming back from the hell that had been Draft Day. Cutting through all the bullshit, the banter, to say what they meant. Casey still wasn’t good at it. He’d still rather make a snide remark, shut the whole conversation down, in the hopes that Dan would drop it and never ever bring it up again. But he got this part, now. Dan needed reassurances. Needed him to make his promises explicit. Dan had gone off to college and been summoned back with the worst news any brother could ever expect to hear, and since that moment he’d been expecting any step forward in his future to be met with resistance, with punishment for the hubris of believing he could be happy. It wasn’t fair, but it was Danny’s brain, and that brain was what had drawn Casey to him, imbalances and all.

He reached out, setting his fingers on Danny’s wrist. A small gesture, not particularly intimate, but he felt the beat of Danny’s pulse beneath his skin. “Dan. Do what you need to do. I’ll be here. Okay?”

Danny’s expression didn’t change. Casey could never stand seeing him like this: his face tight, his shoulders hunched, like he was bracing for a blow. It used to frustrate him, piss him off. It used to make him lash out, like an older sibling who wanted to toughen Dan up, to make him take everything a little less seriously. But playing everything off as a joke or a minor quibble hadn’t worked out well for either of them. Not for long.

Casey stood up, pulling Danny into a hug. He knew Dan was just as tactile as he was, as prone to the need for touch as Casey himself had admitted to being, one brutally honest night over many beers, not long after the dissolution of his marriage to Lisa. “It wasn’t even the sex I missed so much, by the end,” he’d told Dan, the dim light of their corner booth at the bar and the empty glass in his hand making the words easier to get out. “It was just having someone to touch. Someone who wanted to touch me, who didn’t act like I repelled them. That…honestly, until she left, that was the part that killed me.”

Danny melted a little bit in his arms, letting down his guard, and Casey rubbed small circles into his shoulder blades. “Listen to me.” He pulled Danny closer, speaking into his ear. “When I said I wouldn’t trade the last ten years for anything, I didn’t just mean working with you. I wouldn’t trade the last ten years of _knowing_ you for anything. There’s nothing you could do to make me stop feeling that way. I promise you.”

A hiccup had escaped from Dan then, and Casey let him get away gracefully, pretending not to notice the wet spot on his shirt when Danny pulled back. They’d refined the story when they told it later, making the focal point the absurd tights Dan had to wear onstage in his infamous high school production—“15 years old, wearing skintight Spandex, trying not to think about the cheerleading squad as I stood up in front of God, my parents, and the whole damn school. It was practically public indecency. Teenage boys wear baggy pants for a reason, you know?”

Several people had pulled Casey aside privately to ask him how he really felt about Dan’s plan. He’d managed to smile and say he was happy for him, that he wished Dan the best, all while counting down the minutes until this phase was over. Danny would try it out, get bored or disillusioned or both, and be back in the anchor chair within the year. Casey was sure of it.

 

* * *

 

Unsurprisingly, the theater directors of Manhattan were less than enthusiastic about casting a sports anchor in their meticulously prepared productions. Had this been regional theater, Casey had no doubt Danny could have broken in: they’d known a mustachioed mainstay of local sports in Dallas who had done just that, capitalizing on his folksy charm for star turns in _Oklahoma!_ and _Our Town_. But this was New York, where every third waiter wanted to be an actor and every casting agent had an infinite roster of names ready for every possible part. Dan’s celebrity didn’t translate, and was in fact worse than anonymity: most of the initial contacts he approached thought his interest was a joke, and lowering himself to open auditions would undoubtedly bring a scrutiny and ridicule Dan (and _Sports Night_ ) could live without.

Danny remained undaunted, taking private classes and signing up with an acting coach, throwing himself at his dream with his signature zeal while Casey crossed his fingers and hoped he wasn’t headed for a breakdown. He eventually nabbed a role in an experimental piece down at La Mama, a show a college friend had taken the risk of casting Dan in despite his total lack of professional theater experience. Casey hadn’t understood most of what was happening in the bombastic production, which featured, for some reason, a man on stilts with a megaphone and several oversized puppets of parrots that kept dive-bombing the front rows of the audience. He’d skimmed the works of Brecht for his German classes, but his play preferences skewed Shakespearean. Having resigned himself to faking sufficient enthusiasm once the spectacle was through, he was already scripting some blandly encouraging praise when Dan stepped out on the stage, clad in a sleek black feathered cape that made him look half-crow.

The dialogue was still absurd. The plot couldn’t be salvaged. But Dan: Dan was magnetic. He moved around the black box stage like he owned it, the swagger he’d sometimes shown around the studio now larger than life, deliberate and smooth and calculated to mesmerize. He projected well—no surprise there—but more than that his voice _insinuated_ its way into Casey’s ear, giving the sense that Dan was creeping up behind him even as he stood thirty feet away. He cackled, and he cajoled, and his character—who seemed, from what Casey could make out, like an Iago knock-off—ran away with every scene he was in. At the end, it was Danny who earned the most boisterous round of applause: half of that could have been bringing sports fans along, since Natalie didn’t hesitate to use her two-fingered whistle, but Casey sensed it wasn’t only Dan’s _Sports Nights_ family who appreciated his chops.

Afterward they’d all ended up at a bar across the street, a tiny place up a set of narrow stairs, all decked out in low red lighting and Soviet kitsch. If anyone recognized Dan and Casey they gave no signs of showing it: the cast party was fully focused on the fey, leather-clad leading man and Dan’s friend Brandt, the intense, fast-talking director, luminaries of a world Casey didn’t know. He felt a little old and out of it in his dad jeans and his Henley, crammed into a corner table waiting for Natalie, who had gotten lost in the crowd trying to catch the attention of the indifferent bar staff for a round of drinks. Dana hadn’t made it out—“Someone’s got to man this ship,” she’d said when Casey had requested the night off—but Kim was in the corner, talking to a guy she apparently knew from her brief period doing downtown performance art a decade ago.

“Kim,” said Danny, sliding into the seat next to Casey, “is a mysterious woman with an ever-evolving past, it seems.”

He’d taken off his cape, but there were still a few black feathers stuck in his hair. Casey plucked one off, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. “That she is. I asked her if she’d recreate any of those performances at the office, and she informed me that they would violate both the fire code and any existing decency clauses.”

Danny paused, his bottle halfway to his lips. “See, now I _have_ to see it.” He sipped, and Casey noticed he left a trace of red lipstick on the neck of the amber bottle. They’d put him in stark Klaus Nomi-esque makeup that hadn’t totally come off, though he’d clearly tried to scrub the white foundation and glittering eyeshadow from his skin. Casey could feel his leg jiggling beneath the table, could feel the post-show energy Dan always had in the early days of broadcasting radiating off him in waves. It used to make Danny destructive, sometimes. Make him go out and sleep with someone he probably shouldn’t have, or pick a fight, all because he was charged up and without an outlet.

Casey set his hand on Danny’s knee, and Danny stilled, looking over at Casey with eyes still rimmed by dark liner.

“You were great.”

Danny’s mouth twitched. “Really?”

“You were. Now the production as a whole, on the other hand—” Casey removed said hand from Danny’s knee, waving it towards the director, who was holding court (now including Natalie in its retinue) on the opposite side of the bar. “That may have left a little to be desired.”

“Not a fan of breaking the fourth wall, I take it? Didn’t like it when the parrots kept asking the audience to repeat important lines?”

“Yeah, I like my theater just fine with the walls intact, thanks.” Casey clinked his bottle against Danny’s. “But I mean it. You were terrific. And I hope—I mean, this seems like it should lead to bigger things for you.”

Dan glanced around, and then reached in his pocket, pulling out a business card. “Actually, it already has.”

Casey examined the shiny square Danny handed him. “An agent?”

“Not just any agent.” Dan tapped the card. “Helen Zakarian. She’s a legend. I don’t know how Brandt got her here, but she found me after the show. Said she wants to get lunch. I’d been thinking about going over to CAA, since I’m sure they’d sign me on the TV work, but I didn’t want to be anywhere that would push me in ways I didn’t want to go. I want to do _this_ , you know?” He stretched his arms, encompassing the eclectic congregation at the bar. “Well, maybe not the Postmodern Parrot Puppet Show, exactly, but theater. That’s the point. I love TV, but this—this feels authentic. Like I’m tapping into something true, something I’ve always been afraid to dig into. And Helen’s theater, through and through. Old school. So I think I’ve got to meet with her. Extend the sabbatical, if I have to. See where it goes.”

Casey hoped his grin looked real. “That’s great.” He raised his beer again for a toast, wishing Natalie would come back to the table, wishing someone would rescue him from having to pretend his heart wasn’t breaking. “Here’s to seeing where it goes.”

Danny responded in kind, knocking his bottle against Casey’s. “To seeing where it goes.”


	3. Another Hundred People

“You’re sure it was LaGuardia?”

“Positive. Do you have a sign? You should have a sign.”

Casey looked down at the scribbled-on piece of cardboard he’d dug out of the back of his car. “I do have a sign.”

“Okay, because he’ll be looking for a driver. He’ll expect a sign. He’ll probably expect you to get his bags, too. I mean, this is a nice surprise and everything, but if I were a celebrity, I’d never carry my own bags again. I’d _insist_ —”

“Natalie. Breathe. Did you get everything from the bakery?”

“Yes.” 

“And Anna confirmed his flight’s on time?”

“Yes, though you know there are screens at the airport for the express purpose of telling you that, Casey, you could always turn around and—”

“I think I see him.” Casey shouldered his way through the Arrivals crowd, hoisting his makeshift sign a little higher. “I’ll text you when you’re in the car. Get everybody ready, okay?” 

“Roger that. We’re on standby.”

Casey slipped his phone into his pocket, straining for a better glimpse of the Danny-shaped passenger shuffling along with the rest of the weary travelers coming off their various flights. The man had on dark glasses and a ball cap, the classic disguise of celebrities on both coasts, but Casey was pretty sure he could still recognize Dan from the shape of his mouth alone. 

_Okay, file that under things to never say out loud_ , he thought as the maybe-Dan caught sight of him, breaking into a distinctive, slightly lopsided grin that sent instant warmth down Casey’s spine.

Dan slid through the crowd, stopping just a couple of feet in front of Casey to slide his sunglasses down his nose and peer at Casey’s sign. “Please tell me I don’t really have to call you ‘Cut Man’ now. I thought I had at _least_ ten more years before you went senile.”

“Just wanted to remind you of the best of the good old days.” Casey opened his arms, and Dan obliged him by stepping forward into a solid, manly hug. These days he always forgot how slight Danny really was, how compact, since his presence on the big screen always made him seem ten feet tall. It happened to Casey all the time, this surprise at meeting celebrities he’d considered titans that it turned out he towered over, but it was strange to have it happen with someone he’d known and shared space with for so long. 

He released Dan, still gripping him by the shoulders, and did a quick appraisal. “Didn’t you used to be taller?”

“Oh, is tall still in in New York? We’re way past that trend in L.A.” Danny yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “Man, I did not expect jet lag to hit me the minute I stepped off the plane. They pump something into the air here? Something to sedate unsuspecting tourists so they’re even more primed to spend their life savings?”

“All part of Cuomo’s airport renovation plans, my friend.”

“You seem unsurprised that I’m unfazed to find you’re my chauffeur.”

“I figured there was a pretty decent chance that your lovely wife had done the kind thing and warned you about Natalie’s machinations.” 

“That she did. She’s always concerned someone’s going to catch me in the midst of an unflattering expression. Like they might if the entire _Sports Night_ gang jumped out at me in baggage claim.” 

“A gang? We’re a gang now?”

“A motley crew, if you prefer. A cabal, maybe?” Dan pulled his glasses down his nose, giving Casey a brief look at his eyes. A little more lined, but less than Casey’s own; he didn’t doubt Dan’s make-up teams were lathering him up with the best wrinkle creams on the market out in Hollywood. “Anyway, everything I need is being shipped, so we can skip the baggage line altogether.”

Casey nodded, casually placing a hand on Danny’s back to guide him towards parking garage. It felt casual. He hoped it was casual. He could feel the fine fabric of Danny’s casually expensive shirt beneath his palm, but this was the kind of easy physicality they used to exhibit with each other all the time. He was casual. Calm. Cool as a cucumber. 

Dan leaned a little into Casey’s touch as it propelled him forward. “So you rented a limo for me, right? I don’t travel in any other fashion.”

“You jest, but I hear that’s not far from the truth.”

Dan sighed. “Yeah, I’ve attempted to convince my publicists that it’s fine if I show up to premieres in Volvos, but they never seem to believe me.” He cut his glance sideways at Casey, who had dropped his hand and now didn’t quite know what to do with it. Danny was shouldering a single navy bag with sleek silver zippers, so he couldn’t even offer to help with baggage. “You see the new one?”

Casey had, in fact, seen the new one. With Charlie, who still always insisted on seeing Danny’s movies as soon as they came out. As a city kid who had always wanted a dog of his own, he had a soft spot for the Benny movies that had been Dan’s most lucrative career choice in the last few years, critically panned mega-moneymakers in which Danny played a stern suburban father whose zany sentient cocker spaniel, Benny, taught him life lessons about loosening up through endless canine hijinks. There was a Christmas movie and a Halloween movie and this latest film, where the writers had finally been forced to acknowledge Benny’s mortality and pass the mantle of benevolent troublemaker onto one of his pups, Sparky. 

The movies were harmless fluff, but Casey always had a particularly hard time taking Dan’s role as an emotionally constipated workaholic seriously. Danny wouldn’t be like that if he had kids, Casey was certain. When he loved someone, he loved the hell out of them. He couldn’t stop himself. He wasn’t like Casey, who couldn’t seem to connect fully to the people he cared for most. It had taken years to form a real bond with Charlie, countless therapy sessions with the psychologist he finally decided to see after Danny left, when he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t eat and Dana told him he shouldn’t bother showing up to her show if he was going to continue looking like death warmed over in a shitty microwave. It was that therapist who deconstructed his relationship with Dana, too, pointing out all the things he projected on her, that they projected on each other. If nothing else, all those expensive co-pays had been worth the price of realizing Dana wasn’t the one who got away, but the loyal best friend by his side all along. 

He shook himself out of his thoughts, aware Danny was still shooting him looks, waiting for his verdict. “I did see it. Opening weekend, in fact. Had to contribute to those box office numbers, right?”

Danny relaxed. “Yeah. And it wasn’t terrible, right? I mean, it wasn’t good, but it wasn’t as bad as the one where we went to space—”

“I still don’t understand the mechanics there—”

“It was all a dream, apparently. You’re supposed to get that at the end when the kid wakes up and sees his astronaut clock.”

“‘The kid’? Haven’t you been working with them long enough to learn their names?”

“They keep changing them on me. Puberty is not always kind, and Hollywood is unforgiving.” Dan hoisted his bag up, adjusting the strap. “They tell you never to work with animals or children, and here I am, still doing both. They’re good kids, though. Those dogs, on the other hand—”

“Didn’t one of them bite you? I seem to remember a Page Six scandal.”

“Broke the skin and stuck to my arm like a barracuda. Lucky for me, that’s the only kind of scandal I cause these days.” 

They both fell silent, Dan tugging his ball cap lower over his eyes, as if he’d just remembered he was a giant star who might be accosted from any side. No one moving through the post-travel fog of LaGuardia’s labyrinth seemed inclined to give them a second look, but Casey was on his guard anyway. He didn’t want anything to disturb this, to disturb them. They’d gotten so little time together, these past few years. He didn’t want to get his hopes up about Danny’s presence in the city meaning they might get more of it, but he couldn’t keep himself from the anticipation, the thought of leisurely beers shared and games watched and shouted over, with no one waiting, with nowhere else for either of them to go.

He made himself ask, because it was obligatory, because it would have been odd not to: “How’s Anna?”

Dan rolled his shoulders. “Oh, you know. Getting into paleo. Redecorating the beach house. Thrilled I’m going to be in New York for months.”

“I take it that statement is facetious.”

“Mostly. But we both need a break, to be frank with you.” Dan’s eyes were on the airport carpeting now, the old defensive hunch trained out of him with such care by movement coaches suddenly back in his shoulders. “No big deal. It’s just good to get a little space, once in a while. I think she probably gets sick of me, even if she’d never say it.” He looked up and over at Case, his mouth twisting into a wry smile. “I’m aware I can be a lot to take.”

_I’d take you_ , thought Casey, and bit his tongue, hard. He was past this. Way past it. Miles and miles and years and years past wishing Dan would move back home, that everything could be the way it was again. He hadn’t appreciated Danny enough, all those days and nights he was at his side. For a long time he’d beaten himself up about it, wondering if he’d been better to Dan, if he’d encouraged him more, been there for him, if Danny would have stayed at the show, or at least in the city.

But Danny was his own person, and Casey had come to accept that their time together, those halcyon days of early partnership and living in sync, were always destined to end. At least they were still friends. With the way Dan had left and the tumult of his last few months in New York, with the tension that sometimes crackled on the line when they ran out of things to say: Casey remained all too aware it could have gone a different way. 

They made it through the gauntlet of luggage trolleys and baffled travelers to Casey’s car, where Dan slid into the front seat like he’d never left. “So where’s this party I’m not supposed to know about? Please tell me you’re not taking me to Rockefeller Center right now.”

“Nah, it’s at Natalie’s place. She wants to impress you with her new fondue set.”

“Oh, so we’re also traveling to 1968?”

“You better not tell her you’re off cheese. She’ll kill you.” 

“Or spear me. I shudder to think of the damage of a fondue fork could do in those tiny, deadly hands.” Danny looked out at the window as Casey steered his Lexus towards Grand Central Parkway. “If I escape unscathed, can I get a lift to where I’m staying after?”

“Depends if it’s on my route.”

“Oh, I think it will be. North side of East 51st, on the corner of 5th Avenue?” 

Casey whipped his head around to stare at Dan, narrowly avoiding a collision with a speeding cabbie. “Jesus!” He righted the wheel amidst a cacophony of honks and Dan’s barely-stifled guffaw.

“Sorry, sorry.” Danny was laughing into his cap. “Guess I should have saved that surprise for somewhere other than the expressway. But man, you should have seen the look on your face.”

“Yeah, well, it was about to be the last thing you ever saw.” Casey chanced a quick glance over and saw Danny’s hair was getting long again, with a hint of a curl, the way he tended to leave it between shoots. “Seriously, though? You’re what, in my building?”

“Not quite. It’s two doors down. The producers wanted me living in Stardust Diner, but I got my people to lay down my demands, which were to get me as far from Times Square as the theater gods will allow one to be while doing a limited run on Broadway. Apparently Thespis deemed Midtown East within the acceptable radius.” 

“Was Thespis a god? Wasn’t he a ghost?”

“Ask Jeremy.” 

“I would, except he and Natalie haven’t spoken in three years, and—”

“Forks.”

“Yeah, forks.”

The glittering Manhattan skyline was in full view now, lit by the rays of the sun setting over Jersey. It always made Casey feel refreshed, speeding along with the traffic surging onto the island, seeing the place he lived and worked and took for granted half the time from the outside. It was remarkable, this city, and it still surprised him that in the end he’d been the one to stay. That Danny, for all his waxing poetic about New York’s charms, had chosen the West Coast, had remade his life around a Malibu beach house and nights at Cavatina and hikes in Runyon Canyon. Casey could pick up any random issue of _People_ and find evidence of Danny in its pages, trace his steps across Los Angeles, but he’d stopped the habit years ago. For the most part.

Dan closed his eyes, basking in the orange glow as they slid over the Williamsburg Bridge with a hundred other cars, aiming for Natalie’s stylish post-divorce abode in the East Village. Casey looked over, trying not to linger over all the little ways Danny's face had and hadn't changed. “Good to be back?”

“It is.” Dan settled further into the seat, crossing his arms over his chest as he let his head rest against the leather. “It’s really, really good.” 


	4. Tick-Tock

Danny’s sabbatical from the show turned into a year. Two years. Four, and then five, and then the press was no longer referencing the _Sports Night_ credit in his bio at all. There were too many other recent appearances and accolades that fit better: the epic success of his run in _A Streetcar Named Desire_ on Broadway, his three consecutive Tony nominations, his well-chosen and alluringly rare appearances in films and prestige TV shows. Helen Zakarian managed him with a deft and practiced hand, and Dan, as usual, threw himself into the pursuit of whatever it was he was chasing: fame, success, artistic fulfillment. Casey couldn’t be sure exactly what it was that drew Danny to the boards now. 

They saw less and less of each other, but the truth was that Casey was too busy to give it much thought, and he suspected Danny was too. They made time for each other where they could, in the hours that had always been their best anyway: the buzzy, boozy stretch of the New York night when it felt like everyone that counted was still out and enjoying the brief respite from their busy professional lives. Dan was a little less likely to have a nightly beer now, given the complicated choreography and rapid-fire dialogue he had to learn, but he went harder on nights off and celebratory occasions: ordering rounds of shots for everyone in sight, snagging cigarettes off of dancers, even heading off to the bathroom to do God-knew-what with the sketchier elements of his ensemble when he’d played Claude off-Broadway in _Hair_. Casey hadn’t wanted to pry or come off like a concerned dad, but he kept smelling pot on Danny’s jackets, and kept having to take Dan home in cabs when it was clear he wouldn’t get there himself or might do something profoundly stupid along the way. Those nights happened occasionally in the old days, but they were more frequent when Casey saw Danny now, and he couldn’t help wondering who exactly was taking care of Dan when Casey wasn’t there. 

* * *

A small bar south of Rockefeller Center  had become Dan and Casey's preferred spot for meeting up when they actually wanted to talk, frequented as it was by news anchors and other television personalities who made a point of keeping their conversations discreet. It was a touch too pricey and intimidating for tourists; Casey considered the absurd amount of money he’d just forked over for a Manhattan the cost of doing business without a gawking witness from the Upper Midwest in this town.

Dan had told Casey to meet him there after the broadcast because he had some kind of announcement. Casey, naturally, had run through all the best and worst case scenarios for what the news could be on the walk over, crafting theories that ran the gamut from far-fetched to mundane. Maybe Danny had met someone. Maybe the drinking and drugs were worse than Casey thought, and he was going to rehab. Maybe, improbably, and in spite of his meteoric rise to theatrical acclaim, he’d decided to come back to _Sports Night_ after all. They’d gone through a string of subs before finding a co-anchor Casey could halfway stand, but he’d kick him to the curb to get Danny back in the chair in a second. There was still no one else Casey felt as in sync with, no one who could read his mind as well or make him groan as hard by deploying a truly terrible pun with impeccable comic timing. Dana was great, but their whole disastrous romantic history proved just how hard it was for them to get on the same page, and even though she was with Sam now all of those lingering miscommunications and hurt feelings still flared up between them far too often. He missed Danny in the studio, missed the way he could defuse tension with an easy smile and throwaway quip, making Dana laugh and Natalie smile and make everyone forget what they’d been bickering about for a while.

But even the _Sports Night_ version of Danny that Casey looked back on so fondly had been revealed as another character in his ever-widening repertoire. They’d all seen the cracks in the mask, especially during that year Draft Day went off the rails, but somehow Casey had thought if Danny could just get back to himself—to that happy-go-lucky kid Casey had originally met who sure, seemed to run out of crowded rooms pretty fast at times and yes, got a look in his eyes that made Casey want to put all sharp objects out of reach—if Dan could work through his issues with Rebecca and his envy of Casey and his guilt over Sam’s death he’d eventually be okay. He’d be back to his old self, whatever that meant. Casey had known Dan almost two decades, and the only thing he could say for sure about Danny’s personality was that it was mercurial. Melancholic. A storm pattern that was impossible to predict.

With the acting bug had come even more pronounced mood swings, more brief bouts of impulsive behavior and ensuing minor crashes, but Dan had channeled most of that emotional energy into his work, transmuting it into the visceral magnetism that had made him such a hit with critics. Casey worried, though, about how much Danny was influenced by whatever show he was currently working on, whichever director he was aiming to please and impress. Acting seemed to have given Dan plenty of new selves to escape into, but Casey wasn’t sure how much closer it had brought him to an authentic one.

“Hey man, sorry I’m late.” Danny clapped Casey on the shoulder before sliding into the booth. “They had to throw a guy off my train.” He leaned over to steal a gulp of Casey’s drink. “I’m pretty sure he had a gun in his pocket. That or he was _extremely_ excited to be riding the MTA.”

“Either way, a menace to society.”

“Undoubtedly.” Dan flagged down the waiter and ordered a Moscow Mule. “So how’s Charlie? Still obsessed with the periodic table?”

“I can tell you salient facts about all of the transition metals in existence, if that answers your question.”

“Spare me. I slept through Chemistry the first time around for a reason.” The waiter returned with a frosty copper mug. “You should probably try to get him a hobby. Soccer? Robotics? The violin? Periodic table talk is not going to play all that well on dates, I gotta tell you.”

“He’s not going on dates. Not for a few years, at least.”

“Not with a complete knowledge of noble gases, he’s not.”

“He hasn’t actually shown much interest in girls.” Casey swirled the straw around in his cocktail, trying to sound casual. Watching Charlie navigate high school was painful, especially since Charlie reminded Casey so much of himself back then: gawky, pedantic, and hopelessly unfashionable, despite the fact that Charlie had the advantage of growing up in Manhattan. “I’m not sure he’s noticed they exist yet. Probably because he never looks up from his textbooks.”

“Or?” Dan picked up his mug, giving Casey a meaningful look over the coppery rim.

“Or what?”

“C’mon, Casey. It’s 2007. Sheryl Swoopes would be disappointed in you. You know ‘or what.’”

“Or…sure. Could be.”

Dan sipped his drink and set it down. “And you’d be fine with that?”

“You’re seriously asking me that? Who do you think I am, Danny?”

“Hey, it’s different when it’s your kid.” Dan leaned back, rolling out his neck. “You could tell me if it freaked you out.”

“It doesn’t freak me out.”

“But you don’t think he is.”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t have a real girlfriend until college, and then I married her. He could be a late bloomer. Or he could bring home the captain of the football team next week. I’d be fine either way.” Casey finished off his cocktail. “Lisa, on the other hand…”

“I shudder to think.”

Lisa had recently gotten religion again after lapsing in her Methodist ways from adolescence until her late thirties. Casey had done his best to counter her influence by sending Charlie home with plenty of Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Sagan, E.O. Wilson, and other secular humanist standbys to read, but he’d been particularly disturbed by Lisa’s new and vocal disdain for gay marriage. She seemed determined to get in a dig about it every time she saw him lately, maybe just because she knew it would piss Casey off. 

“She’s dating someone new.” Casey moved his empty glass to the edge of the table. “A guy from her church. I haven’t let her introduce Charlie to him yet.”

“And you haven’t met him?”

“No. No desire to, but I guess I’m going to have to suck it up if she’s determined to keep him around.”

That had been their agreement: before introducing anyone they were dating to Charlie, they had to introduce them to each other first. That had been enough to put the kibosh on several relationships, since Casey decided they weren’t serious enough to justify the pain of running them past Lisa, and so far he hadn’t actually let any of the women he’d briefly dated meet Charlie. 

Lisa used to give him shit about how this set-up mostly penalized her, since “Everyone—including my mother, Casey, _my mother_ —knows you’re going to end up with Dana anyway, you always wanted to, and Charlie’s known her since he was born,” but even she seemed to have accepted that the chances for a Casey/Dana romance were well and truly dead. Possibly this had to do with the fact that she’d briefly met Sam while picking up Charlie from the studio one night and realized he was the kind of guy who might not think twice about smashing the kneecaps of someone who made moves on the woman he was in love with, which was why Casey had finally cut it out on the flirting. 

He still loved Dana: loved her spirit, her competence, her flair for her line of work. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever been _in_ love with her, and the time when he’d been certain he was in love with Lisa was so distant as to be nearly mythical. Romance kept receding from him, like a land he was destined never to reach, and at nearly forty he’d resigned himself to the fact that maybe it wasn’t in the cards. Maybe he’d find someone nice; nice enough, smart enough, tolerant enough of his insane work schedule and commitments to stick around. But the person who made his blood thrill just to be around them, who he wasn’t sure he could ever live without: he’d started to believe that person had never existed. 

Dan easily followed his line of thought; it didn’t take a mind reader to realize Lisa moving on had Casey considering his own lack of love life. “I could set you up with an actress,” he offered, as he had so many times before. “You’d have plenty in common. Late hours, the life of the famous, make-up removal tips…”

“I’ve already got my yenta in Dana, thanks.” 

“And yet you remain single.”

Casey fixed his stare on Dan. “And what about you? Can’t help but notice no one of note’s been on your arm at premiere parties lately. I mean, it’s very nice you keep inviting Natalie, but I don’t see her keeping a poker face if that was anything but platonic.”

Dan squirmed. “I’m…exploring my options.”

“It’s not the stock market, Danny. Not one gorgeous co-star has caught your eye? No whip-smart yet unassuming lighting designer has inflamed your ardor?” 

“We’re not here to talk about my ardor, Casey.”

“What are we here to talk about, then?”

“Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?”

“The Bard himself.”

“He’s among my favorite topics.”

“This I know.”

“But you’ve never been quite so keen.”

“Casey, I’m interested in Shakespeare the way normal people are interested in Shakespeare. You’re interested in Shakespeare the way you’re interested in everything, which is to an obsessive degree that would border on unforgivable pedantry if you were not, in fact, insightful and correct in the points you’re making 96% of the time.”

Casey leaned back, oddly touched. “Honestly, that might be one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten.”

“I said 96%.”

“I’ll take that batting average. Though how does that convert? Are the enriching bits of knowledge I generously share with the world my at-bats?” 

“The point is, I know you love Shakespeare. And that’s why I’d like to share my news with you, the news that has somehow gotten sidetracked by me bolstering your ego. I’m playing Hamlet.”

Casey’s jaw actually dropped. Dan leaned over to chuck him beneath the chin to knock it back up. “Stop that before you start drooling.”

“Danny.”

“Yes.”

“This is huge.”

“I’m aware.”

“Hamlet—that’s _the_ role.”

“Case, I know I’m still relatively new to the theater world, but I’d hope it’s a given that I’ve picked up that much.”

“Where—when is this happening? When and where?”

Dan picked up his mug, and Casey noticed his hand was shaking slightly. “Lincoln Center for a two-month run next spring, and then barring disaster, a run until the end of the year starting at the Barrymore in the fall.”

“Holy shit.”

“Thomas Bradford’s playing Horatio.”

“The guy you did that Ionesco show with? He’s incredible.”

“He is. They’re looking at Helen Mirren for Gertrude. Until the contracts are signed, I can’t bet on the rest of the cast, but they’re in talks with some major players.”

“I bet. _Hamlet_ on Broadway—that’s once in a lifetime.”

“You’re telling me.”

Casey watched Dan’s mug nearly tip over as he set it down. “How are you feeling about it?”

“Are you kidding?” Dan was doing that thing where he didn’t quite meet Casey’s eyes, where he managed to look just past him while still giving the illusion that he was just overexcited, and not utterly terrified. “Elated. Over the moon. This is what I’ve been working toward for years.”

“I know. And that’s why I want to know how you really feel about it.”

“I told you, I’m—” 

“Danny.” Casey reached out to put his hand on Dan’s, feeling the tremble there, barely perceptible beneath his palm. Dan’s eyes finally flicked back to Casey’s.

“I’m good.” Danny exhaled, slow and deliberate, and gave Casey’s hand a brief squeeze before withdrawing. “Really. I’m—it’s an amazing opportunity. Am I scared out of my mind? Yes. But do I have the best therapist and antidepressants money can buy? Also yes. So I’ll be fine. I was fine doing _Streetcar_ , and that was no picnic. It all comes with the territory.”

“Okay.” Casey sat back, signaling the waiter for another drink after one more moment of scrutinizing Dan. “But I’m here, you know? If you need anything. Me, Natalie, Dana—we’re all here.”

“Don’t I know it.” Dan smiled, a little wanly. “Natalie won’t let me forget it.”

“Hey, if there’s any one I want on my side in this nightmare-haunted nutshell we call life, it’s that 5 foot 3 firecracker.”

“‘This nightmare-haunted nutshell we call life.’” Dan shook his head. “Jesus. You really do need to get laid.”

“I get—” Casey cut off his own defense as the waiter brought him his scotch. “We’re on you, now. Not my personal life. Who’s directing?”

“Ozan Utku.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. He’s good.”

“He’s really good.”

“He wants to go dark with it. Really dig into Hamlet’s volatile complexes.”

“Hamlet is not the most stable of Danish princes.”

“As they go.”

“Can you name another Danish prince?”

“Aren’t they all named Frederik?”

“Or Christian, traditionally.”

“See, now why is this the kind of knowledge we keep it our heads?” Dan threw up his hands. “I ask you this, Casey. It makes us insufferable to everyone but—each other.” 

“Well, then.” Casey raised his glass. “Here’s to each other.”

Dan grinned, lifting his mug. “To each other.” 


	5. Marry Me A Little

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you don't know "Marry Me A Little," well, you're welcome, because here's John Barrowman singing it just for you in a very gay shirt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrfk8weTWTM

Dan leaned against the wall of Natalie’s apartment building, watching as Casey punched in the door code. “So what was the plan for this stage of the subterfuge? Doesn’t the surprise wear off once you take me to a random location for no discernible reason instead of, I don’t know, somewhere I can take a shower?”

“You’ve been in the city an hour and you need a shower? Such a precious California flower.”

“Your rhyme scheme is all over the place, man. And I may have flown first class, but I’d still like to scrub the Delta off as soon as humanly possible.”

“I was supposed to tell you,” Casey admitted as he pushed open the door, “that we were picking up a package.”

“A package for…”

“For me, I guess. I don’t know, Natalie left that part of the embellishment up to my imagination.”

Danny shook his head as they proceeded down the hallway and up the stairs to the second floor. “Always a mistake.”

“Hey, I can embellish with the best of them!”

“Casey, I once went so far as to call Barry Sanders ‘unstoppable’ in copy and you told me to tone down the hyperbole. You have neither Natalie’s penchant for exaggeration nor her devious mind. She never should have sent you on this mission unprepared.”

“Well, can you tell her I told you something good? And try to look surprised.”

Dan shot him a look as they stopped outside Natalie’s door. “I won an Oscar, and you think I can’t look surprised?”

“Okay, just—” Casey raised his hand and knocked. “Just don’t give her ammo to kill me for ruining the plan.”

“Didn’t we decide it wouldn’t be ammo, it would be tiny, tiny tines?”

The door swung open, saving Casey from having to demean himself with a reply. He and Dan peered inside. “Why’s it so dark?” Dan whispered, a little too close to Casey’s ear. 

“Shhh.” Casey pushed the door open further, stepping over the threshold. “Hello? I’m here for the, uh—package.”

Danny started cracking up. Casey reached back to drag him into the apartment just as someone—probably Natalie—hit the lights, and a chorus of shouts of “Surprise!” went up from various corners of the apartment. There was Kim, who’d left the show a couple of years ago but welcomed any excuse to show up and flirt with Danny, looking sleek in a curve-hugging green silk dress; Dana and Sam, popping out from behind Natalie’s fridge; Will, Elliot, and Dave, who still had a weekly poker night going even though Will had left _Sports Night_ not long after Dan did. They were sandwiched in the corner behind the round table, far too big for the room, that Natalie had already set bubbling pots of fondue and dipping items upon. 

“Oy vey!” Danny clutched at his heart, staggering back against the door, which Natalie, red-cheeked with the gin and tonics she’d clearly already been consuming, had let fall closed behind him. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to scare people like that around scalding cheese? It’s a recipe for disaster!”

Natalie sighed, turning to Casey with her hands on her hips. “You told him.”

“I didn’t tell him!”

“How did he know it was fondue?”

“Because he has eyes!”

“Danny, did you know?” 

Danny scooped her up into a hug, lifting her a half-inch off the ground. “I did not know. Casey told me we were here for a package, so I just figured he’d developed a skeezy drug habit while pining for want of my fine company.”

Casey flinched, but Natalie didn’t seem to register the comment as anything other than a joke, immediately turning her attention back to hostessing. “Everyone’s here! And Sam’s our bartender for the evening. Sam, pour Danny a ginger beer.” Natalie pulled Dan forward, into the circle of old friends—Sam scowling even as he pulled a bottle of Reed’s out of the refrigerator, Kim angling her way to be the next one Danny hugged—and a few faces Casey didn’t recognize: maybe the woman in red was Dave or Will’s new girlfriend, and he thought the younger couple near the window were pals Natalie had gotten in the divorce. She’d gotten most of the friends, to be honest: Casey still tried to keep up with Jeremy as much as he could, but it was tough when his social and professional life were so thoroughly tangled up with Natalie’s. After all, she’d been executive producer under Dana now for four years, and Casey had been the one to talk her through it when Jeremy’s jealousy over how well her career was going had begun to erode the foundation of an already rocky relationship. He’d told her all about his history with Lisa, all the things only Danny really knew from back then—about _Late Night_ , about the way they’d go after each other instead of talking things out, about how fast it had all soured and how, in Casey’s experience, once you got to a place where things were that bad, that bitter, the only way through was out. Natalie had gotten stuck on the Conan story—“ _Late Night_? You turned down _Late Night_? For _Danny_?”—but she’d also gotten the point. She’d given Jeremy one last chance to get his act together, after so many before; he hadn’t, and so she’d served him divorce papers.

He wondered if Dan was planning to see Jeremy while he was in town. He’d ask, but it was clear he wasn’t going to get his chance any time soon, with Dana pulling Dan onto the sofa to ask all about the latest Hollywood gossip and Kim sitting practically in his lap. Casey crossed over to Sam, who was now tending the drinks cart with misanthropic zest, seeming to take great pleasure in adding absolutely zero flourishes to everyone’s requested cocktails. Casey snapped his fingers. “Barkeep! Can I get a scotch on the rocks?”

Sam glowered, shoveling a handful of ice into a glass. “My wife still controls your show, you know. I’d be careful what you call me in her hearing.”

“How’d you get stuck with this gig, anyway?” Casey accepted the sloppily poured drink Sam proffered. “I’m getting the feeling you didn’t offer to be of help.”

“We all have jobs.” Sam pointed to the fridge door, where there was some kind of color-coded chart. He smiled, looking like a positively gleeful goblin beneath the twinkling string lights Natalie had hung along the crown molding. “And you’re ‘fondue master’.”

“No.”

“Oh, yes.”

Casey drained his scotch in one go and held out the empty glass. “Hit me again, Sam.”

 

* * *

 

Five hours, countless scotches, several minor burns incurred from fishing pieces of meat and fruit that drunk people had lost out of the bottom of fondue pots later, Casey was beyond ready to head home. Dan was also looking a little worse for wear: as the honored guest, he hadn’t been assigned an official task, but being the sole object of Natalie’s undivided attention could be wearying for even the most publicly adored of men.

Dan cast Casey a desperate look as Natalie tried to feed him a last chocolate-covered strawberry after their hugs and goodbyes. Casey took pity on him, grabbing Dan by the arm to yank him through the doorway. “Natalie, the man has a Broadway musical to star in. You can gorge him on all the desserts you want once he’s finished dancing two shows a day.” 

Dan pulled the door closed behind him, leaning his head against it and raising his eyes to the heavens. “Why would you promise her that?”

“We weren’t getting out of there without some kind of sacrifice.”

“And it’s my abs?”

“Better yours than mine.”

Dan cast an appraising look up and down Casey’s body that was frankly insulting. “Uh-huh.”

“Hey, some of us don’t have a team of personal trainers and nutritionists! Some of us are still have to hit the local gym to stay fit.”

“Nah, I’m just kidding. You look good.” Dan pushed himself up off the door. “Still playing squash?”

“And swimming, now. The joints aren’t what they used to be.” 

“I hear ya. The noises my knees have been making in dance classes—” Danny shuddered, starting off down the hallway. “It’s frightening.”

“At least _Company_ doesn’t have a kickline.”

“Au contraire, mon frère. We’ve got a vigorous one during ‘Side by Side.’ But it’s not like I have to become a Rockette. Just” —Dan cracked his neck— “A _little_ more limber than I usually am.”

A chilly blast hit them when they got out of Natalie’s apartment, and they mostly listened to the sounds of their own teeth chattering as they hustled down St. Marks and into Casey’s car. “Jesus,” Danny said, slamming the door and rubbing his hands together. Casey turned on the heat, forcing it up as high as it would go. “Remind me why I ever left L.A.?”

“Because it’s devoid of true culture and all the decent theaters are here?”

Dan glanced over at him as Casey shifted into gear. “You mock, but you’d like L.A. Sunshine, superior Mexican food, hiking right in the middle of the city…it ain’t paradise, but there are days it comes close.”

_Sunshine, Pacific Ocean, new car, Laker Girls, plus the L.A. Philharmonic with Mr. Esa-Pekka Salonen at the podium_. Casey shook his head, trying to clear the ancient image of Dan sitting across from him, naming off the reasons they should take the L.A. offer once _Sports Night_ officially got the ax. It had been years, but it felt like it was yesterday. One word, one phrase, could bring it all rushing back.

This was the problem with seeing Danny again. This is what it would always be. Casey would never be able to have a conversation without the echoes of old ones intruding on everything they said, on everything they avoided saying. Without memories of Dan at thirty, twenty-five, nineteen, surfacing when he least expected them. 

He sighed and gripped the wheel, steering them up Second Avenue. Traffic was blessedly light, and they made it to their now-shared block in under fifteen minutes. “Want to see the new place?” Danny said, as Casey pulled into his building’s parking garage. “I’m still on West Coast time, so there’s no way I’m sleeping. But I do understand if you feel compelled to.”

Casey eased the car into his spot. “Sure, let’s do it. It’s not like I’ve got anybody waiting up.”

“Never rekindled your passionate affair with Sally?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. You know she’s at ESPN now?”

“I heard. Killing it, apparently.”

“Yeah. She was always good. We gave her a lot of shit, but she was always pretty damn good.”

“Well, we were idiots.” Dan stretched his legs as he got out of the car. “Young and brilliant, and also somehow utter idiots.”

“We did have our less than stellar moments.”

Dan was quiet for a few moments as they started walking towards the street entrance. “One thing I’ll say for our crew, though—I still love the hell out of all of you. And that’s a rare thing. You know how many relationships I’ve had devolve over the years in Hollywood? How many movies I’ve worked on where the cast fell apart and started communicating solely through reps? The fact that Natalie Hurley would still drop everything to plan a surprise party for me the minute I come into town, even with all the shit I pulled back then—it’s a rare thing, Case. And I feel lucky. I really, really do.”

Casey reached out to sling an arm around Danny’s shoulders, giving him a kind of half-hug before they emerged out onto the sidewalk. “You deserve it. You always did. I was no ray of sunshine either, God knows, and they’ve still haven’t walked off the set after having to deal with me all these years.”

“That is, in fact, insane. It doesn’t demonstrate sound reason.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“But somehow they still love us.”

“They do.” Casey gave Dan’s shoulder a squeeze before releasing it. “So, should we pick up some late-night snacks? Some non-alcoholic libations? I’m sure midnight bodega runs where everyone pretends not to recognize you are a New York tradition you’ve missed.”

“No need.” Dan was leading Casey west. He’d confirmed at the party that he was staying where Casey suspect: the Olympic Tower, which the _Sports Night_ crew had hailed as a good omen. “The place is fully stocked. With what, I’m not sure, but they know my preferences. And before you start worrying, my Midwestern friend, I’m sure there’s a full selection of acceptable cheeses.”

“God, I don’t think I can ever look at cheese again. The bubbling’s going to haunt my nightmares.”

They made their way up to Dan’s apartment after exchanging pleasantries with the doorman, who had clearly already been briefed on the newest celebrity arrival to the residence. Dan pressed the button for the fortieth floor when they got into the empty elevator. “It’s not Onassis’s penthouse, but they’ve got me set up in a nice suite one of the producers owns. Apparently it may be the hotly contested subject of some ongoing divorce proceedings overseen by some very expensive lawyers, but I’ve been assured I won’t be kicked out during the run of the show.”

“Nice” was a severe understatement for the grand suite they entered, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and panoramic views of the Empire State Building. Dan strode into the place like he owned it, tossing his wool coat onto the light gray sectional sofa before kicking off his shoes to stretch his legs out on its cushy length. “Ah.” He leaned back, draping his arms over the back of the sofa. “Heaven, right? Check out the big screen.” He pointed to the massive television against the opposite wall. “Perfect viewing for game nights, my friend. We are all set for bowl season.”

Casey hung his own coat carefully on the rack, toeing off the Cole Haan loafers Natalie had convinced him to buy last year (“you can _not_ keep wearing ratty sneakers on your days off, Casey, you just can’t”) and walked into the wide expanse of the living room, surveying the built-in mahogany bookshelves and the vintage New York baseball posters someone had clearly tracked down and had framed at great expense just to provide personal decoration for Danny’s stay. “Wow. They really pull out all the stops, huh?”

Danny wiggled his sock-covered toes. “Life of a star.” 

“No kidding.” Casey wandered past Dan over to the windows, taking in the the glittering stretch of Midtown beyond. “Maybe I should have changed careers. These are some serious perks.”

“You’ve got practically the same view at the office.”

“Yeah, but no balcony. And no—is that a Steinway?”

Dan craned his neck to look. “Oh, yeah.” He jumped up. “Recently tuned. Gotta get my practice in.” He slid onto the bench of the grand piano, situated at the southeast corner where the two walls of living room windows came together. “You want to hear something? I’ve been behind on my homework, but I’ve been working my way through Sondheim for a long time. I can probably play you any of the classics.”

Casey stared as Dan ran his fingers across the keys, doing a riff on “Send in the Clowns.” “I didn’t realize you could play.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dan looked up, letting his playing drop off to a couple of plinks. “Got into it when I took all those singing lessons. You remember I could play some guitar? But my instructor recommended I take this up too. I’d never play publicly, but it’s good musical prep. And it’s painful to watch actors play pianos in movies when they don’t really know what they’re doing, so I figured I’d spare the filmgoing audiences that if I could.”

“Huh.” Casey stood, oddly mesmerized by Danny’s lithe fingers, unsettled by evidence of the span of time and distance that had passed between them, the gap wide enough for Dan to pick up a whole new specialty without Casey’s knowing. He shouldn’t have been surprised. That’s what actors did, after all: take up new things, for a role, for a performance, before discarding whatever they no longer needed.

“You want to hear something?” Danny looked up, glancing over his shoulder. “Case?”

Casey shook himself out of his morose contemplation. “Uh, yeah.” He approached the piano, setting his hand on its sleek black surface. He racked his brain, thinking of the productions he’d seen come through the city, the soundtracks Charlie had helped him load onto whatever device he’d had for listening at the time. “I always liked ‘Marry Me A Little.’ Lisa and I saw a great rendition of it at Lincoln Center by this guy—god, I wish I could remember his name—when we first moved to the city, as part of this big Sondheim night.” They’d gotten dressed up and left Charlie with a sitter, and gone out into the bustling summer evening briefly convinced this was how their few free evenings would be from here on out, exciting and convivial and packed with art and inspiration, with none of the bitter silences and droughts of affection that had marked their endless time in Texas. 

Casey continued on, his tongue loosed by all the generous pours at Sam’s bar, even though he knew how much Dan hated talking about Lisa even now. “It reminds me of how we were early on. Lisa and me. So sure we knew what we were doing, that we could step around all the little cracks we’d always had for the rest of our lives.”

“Funny, that song always reminds me of you and me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, not…marriage.” Danny drew the word out, like he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. “But all the stuff about—” He hummed a little, catching the tune before accompanying himself on the piano. “ _You can be my best friend_ / _I can be your arm/We’ll go through a fight or two/No harm, no harm._ ”

Casey picked it up, lilting, not quite singing, as Danny had done. “ _We’ll not look too deep/We’ll not go too far. We won’t have to give up a thing/We’ll stay who we are_.” 

He dropped away as Dan continued on to the chorus, listening to the smoky timbre of Danny’s voice thicken as he worked himself up to full volume, smooth and rich as good whisky tipping into the glass. Dan used to sing like it was a joke, belting out Queen at karaoke or making his voice as waveringly obnoxious as possible when hamming up “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” or doing the extra verses on “Happy Birthday” at the office. But he had control and confidence now, a natural command of the new space he found himself in that had the melody echoing with just the right amount of vibration off the impeccably decorated walls. His mellow tone reminded Casey a little bit of Dan’s three-time co-star Robert Downey Jr., whose other parallels to Danny’s life Casey didn’t want to think about too closely. 

Dan doubled back to the first verse, and Casey closed his eyes, swaying a little on the balls of his feet as the memories—sitting beside Lisa, that night years ago at the theater, hoping maybe a change of scenery would solve all their problems; standing beside Danny at the studio, countless nights after getting off the air, looking out at this very same skyline; lying alone, all those nights after Danny left, wondering exactly what it was he’d done wrong—overlapped and blurred, their jagged edges softened by Dan’s warm, teasing tone. _“Marry me a little/Love me just enough/Cry, but not too often/Play, but not too rough. Keep a tender distance/so we'll both be free. That's the way it ought to be._

_Marry me a little,_

_Do it with a will._

_Make a few demands_

_I'm able to fulfill._

_Want me more than others,_

_Not exclusively._

_That's the way it ought to be._

_I'm ready!_

_I'm ready now!”_

Dan stopped there, shaking his head. “Sorry.” He was looking down at the keys, not at Casey. “I can play you something else if you want. That one just feels a little—fraught. Anna and me—”

“I didn’t want to pry—”

“Yeah.” Dan hit an F minor chord. “It’s fine. It’s what it’s been. But I’m getting sick of it. She’s seeing a guy—discreetly, of course, which we’re both plenty good at by now—and I think she’s really falling for him, and I want to just say—go for it, you know? Go be happy with him, the way you can’t be with me. We’re both just holding on for the publicity, at this point.” He blew out a long breath. “Her because Hollywood’s a misogynistic hellhole that will never let you forget the sex tape your shitty pop star ex-boyfriend leaked, and me because—well, because I’m a perpetual mess.”

“You’re not.” Casey came to kneel beside the bench, suddenly concerned that Danny might be crying. He wasn’t, but Casey stayed there anyway, reaching to grab his hand. “You’re not a mess. You know that.”

“Casey, everyone has always thought I’m a mess. Everyone. Except you.” Danny returned Casey’s grip with a tight smile. “That was always the problem with us, wasn’t it? You believed in me a hell of a lot more than I believed in myself, most days. I think I just wanted everything from you because of that. It wasn’t fair. You couldn’t have—you couldn’t have done that for me. Made me feel okay about myself, about Sam, about the show. But I wanted you to. I really, really wanted you to.”

“Maybe I couldn’t have.” Casey fought the urge to do something crazy, like stroke Danny’s hand or press a kiss to his knuckles, just to reassure Dan they were okay. _Definitely_ too many glasses of scotch. “But I could be a dick. I acknowledge that.”

Danny laughed. “Yeah, you could.”

“Although let the record show how often I was baited.”

“I don’t know if either of us have the energy to be assholes with the same fervor anymore.”

“A blessing of middle age, maybe.”

“Maybe so.” 

Casey realized he’d been caught in his “will you take this ring?” pose a little too long, and stood with some minor awkwardness, brushing non-existent dirt off of his pants. “So. Should we investigate this cheese situation? I’m not going to be impressed with this lavish celebrity lifestyle until I’ve confirmed it involves free Provolone.”

Dan chuckled, rising to his feet. “Yeah. And then I’m going to play you a full rendition of _Cats_.”

“That’s not even Sondheim!”

“It’s not even comprehensible.’

“I knew you’d be a menace to this city when you came back.”

“And to you personally.”

“Always.”

Dan threw a cheeky grin over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen. “Love you too, Case.”


	6. Poor Baby/Tick Tock

A few days before Danny’s _Hamlet_ opened for previews at the Public, a late February blizzard slammed into the city, crashing into Manhattan like a sucker-punch after a few unseasonably pleasant days. Casey found himself fighting his way into the studio through slush puddles and stinging snowflakes, shoving his way through the throngs of tourists that somehow still hadn’t been deterred from hanging out around Rockefeller Center.

There was a voicemail waiting when he finally got up to his office, which wasn’t unusual. It was from Dan, which was. Dan never called Casey at work anymore, except when they’d made plans he had to cancel or change and knew Casey might be wandering the halls without his cell phone on him. “Case,” Danny breathed into the receiver, and it sounded like he was out somewhere, the sound of muffled voices and clinking glasses coming down the line beyond him. Had Danny been out in the snowstorm last night? There was no way to tell from the recording, but Casey strained to hear clues anyway. “Casey,” Dan said, more clearly this time, and then he hung up. Casey sat frozen for a moment as the voicemail beeped out, and then lunged for the phone.

His fingers dialed Dan’s number easily; he’d never understood how anyone who had watched the towers go down could fail to memorize the phone numbers of their nearest and dearest should the worst occur. It rang four times and went to voicemail.

“Shit.” Casey slammed down the receiver, picked up back up, and dialed once more.

It took five tries. Finally, just as Casey was trying to decide how to best to tell Dana that he was skipping rundown in the middle of a winter storm to go check on Dan, Danny picked up the phone, his voice groggy. “Case?” He coughed. “You okay?”

“Are _you_ okay?”

There was a long silence. “Yeah, of course I’m okay,” Dan said, like he’d just understood the question. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you called me at 2 a.m. last night at the studio and left a cryptic message where you said my name twice and hung up.”

“Oh. Shit.” There was murmuring on the other end of the phone line. Danny wasn’t alone. “I—it was a drunk dial. Sorry. We were all—tech was brutal. I got pretty wasted.”

“So you called the studio? Not my cell?”

“I think…” Danny’s voice was trailed off now, like he was still half-asleep. “I think I didn’t want to bother you. I think I thought if I dialed the studio number it might be you from five years ago who picked up. Or that it’d be me.”

“What?”

More murmuring. “Listen, Casey, I gotta go. We’re—I’m—“ There was jostling, like someone was wrestling Danny for the phone, and then Dan vanished with a click. 

Casey sat holding the receiver for a long time, listening to the dial tone. Then Kim knocked to give him the latest on the Lakers, and he didn’t have another moment to think about Danny’s call until well after midnight.

* * *

“He says it’s bad,” Natalie told him the next day.

“What is?” Casey glanced over at her as they walked toward the control room. “The show?”

“No, not the show. The _process_.” Natalie made air quotes around the word. “Haven’t you noticed how much he talks about _process_? Anyway, this director is a real taskmaster, apparently. Very method. Really wants to get Dan into Hamlet’s headspace.”

“So…into the headspace of someone who’s responsible for the deaths of many, many people?”

“Yep.” Natalie yanked open the door to the control room. “I guess that’s why it’s not that fun. I liked it better when he was in _Hair_. And hey, we all got to see his butt.”

“Natalie, you can’t objectify Dan like that just because he doesn’t work here anymore.”

“Are you feeling left out? Do you want me to objectify _your_ butt?”

“For God’s sake, woman.” Casey shook his head as Will turned around to smirk and Kim raised an eyebrow. “Stop talking butts, and focus on the live television show we all somehow manage to keep making despite the highly unlikely odds.” 

* * *

He kept trying Danny’s cell over the next couple of days, but there was no answer. He was busy. Dress and final rehearsals, surely. Dan was fine.

The city was frosty, and Casey could never seem to fully get warm. His office space heater only offered comfort in one small corner of the place, and the studio always seemed chilly, even beneath the burning lights. His apartment felt cold too, despite the super’s assurances that they were keeping it adequately heated. Casey had gone out to buy a thermometer and only ended up confirming to himself that he was crazy. Everything was fine. It was just cabin fever, the claustrophobia of winter, getting in his head, into his bones. There was nothing wrong.

* * *

Three nights after previews started, Casey made his way down to Noho on his own to catch Danny’s show. Everyone else was working; he’d used a rare day off to take Charlie down to City Bakery for their hot chocolate festival after school, and they’d walked around Union Square, bundled up in coats and scarves, letting the steam from their caloric drinks warm their faces. He’d thought about bringing Charlie to _Hamlet_ , but he and Dan had talked about going out afterward whenever Casey came to see the show. Dan had asked Casey not to tell him exactly what night that would be: he’d developed some weird rituals and superstitions about his performances over the years, just like any seasoned actor, and apparently too much advance warning that Casey was going to be in the audience threw him off his game.

Casey made it to the Public early and took his seat in the fifth row of the rapidly filling theater. Early reviews of the show had been great, even if there had been some residual snark about a former American sports anchor daring to take on Shakespeare, and Natalie said she’d heard tickets were sold out for weeks. It was a different turn for the Public, who usually reserved their Shakespeare productions for Central Park, but sponsors for that tourist-friendly institution could get a little touchy about the edgier takes on the Bard. And Ozan Utku, the genius director who had apparently been making Dan’s life hell these last few weeks, was known for last-minute revisions of his works that shocked and appalled the theatrical establishment; he’d been the _enfant terrible_ of Berlin and London in his youth. But he’d earned his reputation as an innovator with his fresh takes on some of the more staid standards in the canon, and Casey had heard excellent things about his productions of _Macbeth_ from a few years back. 

Not that Utku’s directorial choices tonight would matter much to Casey: Shakespeare never failed to thrill him. He’d been hooked ever since picking up _Julius Caesar_ from the school library in fifth grade, even though he’d failed to persuade any of his classmates to play the Cassius to his Antony during recess. Even the worst productions of the Bard couldn’t remove the punch from certain immortal lines, and if Lisa had more than once had to elbow him to stop him mouthing along when they went to see Shakespeare productions together, well, it certainly wasn’t a point against his erudition.

The lights went down, and Casey settled further into his seat, wedged between a couple in their eighties on his right and a trio of chic thirty-somethings who reminded him he’d never really been hip on his left. Utku’s set was gloomy and post-modern, the ramparts of his Elsinore all slanted metal walkways clearly meant to mimic fire escapes. The intention was obvious, with the actors in their torn black clothing and their penchant for smoking cigarettes: this was urban Gothic, all ruined grandeur and indulgent self-destruction. Late capitalist decline in the place of succession anxieties, with Claudius playing soulless Wall Street shark to Hamlet’s nihilistic slacker.

Once the action got into full swing, though, the affect wasn’t bad. It was—good, actually. It worked. But Casey kept squirming, jiggling his leg with enough that the elderly, impeccably dressed woman next to him looked over with a glare. “Sorry,” he whispered, and tried to focus on the rhythm of the show, and not on the thought that kept intruding on the action, the thought that kept pounding beneath every line of iambic pentameter like a drumbeat.

It was Danny. It had been Danny ever since he first he appeared in his mourning clothes in Act I, Scene II, looking worse than Casey had ever seen him. Beneath the cakey stage make-up his skin looked wan, the hollows below his eyes nearly blue. He’d been styled as a strung-out hipster, a wealthy junkie maybe hooked on heroin or just copious amounts of top shelf booze, and he looked the part. Too much the part. There was a tremor in his left hand—Casey kept straining forward to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light—and maybe Dan had the control to mimic that kind of unconscious movement to add to Hamlet’s jittery energy, but Casey didn’t think so. He’d seen Dan’s hand shake like that before he’d run out of rooms where there were too many people, too much noise, too many intractable social dynamics. When a day of interviews and parties had dragged on too long. When he couldn’t fake it anymore. Couldn’t hold it together any longer. 

Casey had to clutch the seat, digging his fingers into the armrests, to resist the urge to confirm Dan was all right, to run up to where Danny walked the stage, so close and yet so very far away.

_He’s acting_ , Casey thought. It was all acting. A masterclass in mental breakdown. As Dan snarled and lashed out at those he used to love, Casey tried to ignore the shiver running his arms, the dread pooling in his gut. It was a show. This was what he was meant to feel, and Dan had gotten awards for a reason. He needed to calm down, and get it together before going to see Dan after the performance. It was embarrassing, the way he still couldn’t help worrying about him, and he knew Danny wouldn’t appreciate it in this instance one bit.

The other actors captivated his attention here and there: the commanding _grande dame_ (not Helen Mirren after all) who played Gertrude; the waifish, bohemian Ophelia; Horatio, played by Dan’s old castmate Tom, looking poignantly handsome and concerned for his friend’s well-being in tight black jeans and a gray hooded garment that swirled impressively behind him with every turn. They were all at the top of their game, all incredibly captivating, and seeing their skill brought to bear in service of one of Casey’s favorite plays should have had him in a state of reverie. 

But Casey was relieved when the lights went up and he didn’t have to witness anymore of Dan’s agony, manufactured as it might be. He could tell it had an effect on the rest of the crowd as well: while the applause was thunderous (leading to a standing ovation during which Casey scanned Dan’s face for any telltale signs of his well-being), everyone seemed to be talking in hushed tones as they departed, the somber, unsettling spectacle of those gory last scenes still hanging heavily in the air. 

Casey made his way backstage without any issues: he’d visited Danny once early on in the rehearsal run and gotten the full tour of the place, and the only staff member he encountered waved him through to the dressing rooms without even checking her clipboard of names. “Dan told us to keep an eye out for you,” she said. “My girlfriend loves your show, but says you don’t cover enough women’s basketball.”

“I’ll pass that onto our producer,” Casey promised, who had heard similar complaints from women with the same haircut. He really needed to remind Dana to start catering to their lesbian demographic, which made up a largely untapped portion of the sports viewing audience. “Thanks.”

Dan’s dressing room door was closed, and Casey took a second to gather himself before knocking. _Be cool_ , he instructed himself, and then, realizing how hard Danny would be laughing at him if Casey was standing outside psyching himself up with cliches, he immediately tapped on the door, rapping his knuckles against the wood.

There was no answer. He tried again, and was about to turn back and ask the woman who’d directed him down the hallway if Dan might be elsewhere when the door finally opened. “Hey,” said Danny, slipping out and closing it behind him. His clothes were askew, his make-up splotchy, like he’d started to rub it off but hadn’t quite finished the job. “So tonight was the night, huh? Is it just you, or did you get anyone else to play hooky?”

It was normal Danny banter, but there was something about the rapid-fire pace and the way Dan seemed short of breath that made it seem forced. “Just me,” said Casey, surveying Dan and confirming that the bags beneath his eyes and the lines in his forehead weren’t all created by make-up. Danny looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “Did you still want to go out? We could always resched—”

The door creaked open again. Dan scrabbled at the knob for a second, as if trying to keep it closed, but gave it up as soon as the person on the other side appeared. It was Tom Bradford, the actor who played Horatio. Slinking out of Dan’s dressing room, looking like the cat who got the cream. 

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry in the least. “I’ve got to go get changed.”

The lipstick he’d worn in the show was a rose-colored streak across his mouth, his cheek. Casey couldn’t stop staring at Bradford’s retreating form as he sauntered down the hallway, disappearing into his own dressing room, a few doors down.

Dan sighed, rubbing his eyes. “I told him to wait. But of course he didn’t listen to me.”

Casey turned his gaze back to Dan. He didn’t know why he was finding it hard to look at him right now. “But why would he—I mean, what—?” _What the fuck is happening_? he stopped himself from saying. Dan was acting like a roguishly attractive British man coming out of his dressing room was a minor inconvenience, not like it was a revelation that demanded immediate and in-depth explanation.

Danny brushed away a dried glob of mascara from his eye and shrugged. “I don’t know. He probably heard you out here. Wanted to stir up some drama. Make you jealous. He can be a prick that way.”

“But we’re not—” It felt like some remnant of the giant marshmallow he and Charlie had been snacking on with their hot chocolate earlier was stuck in Casey’s throat. “We’re not—together.”

Danny blinked at him, slowly. “Yeah, I’m aware of that, Case. But _he_ probably thinks we are.”

“Why would he—did you—?”

“You can quell your straight panic, Casey. No, I did not imply to him that we’d been conducting some kind of passionate gay affair during the run of our high-profile sports show and for over half-a-decade afterwards. But it’s been a rumor for years. You’ve got to know that.”

“I mean, I—I guess so.” There had always been tongue-in-cheek references to how close he and Dan were in the sports world and occasionally even in a late-night monologue, but they were jokes. “I just didn’t realized anyone might actually believe it.”

Danny leaned back against the door, sliding his hands into his pockets as he let out another sigh. “Yeah, it’s pretty far-fetched.” He shook his head. “And at least it never made it into the tabloids. Pretty much every other half-baked theory about me has started to.” He pushed himself up off the doorframe. “Anyway. You still want to get something to eat?”

* * *

They ended up at Yaffa Cafe, an eclectic Middle Eastern fusion spot where Dan’s disheveled post-show look (old jeans and a hoodie, remnants of make-up and gel still smeared across his face and hair) didn’t seem particularly out of place among the punky 20-somethings chowing down on falafel and burgers. Dan had wanted to get away from the central radius around the Public for fearing of running into his cast mates—“I already spend too much time with those people” —and Casey had obliged, happy to put some distance between the two of them and Tom Bradford, whose smug expression he couldn’t get out of his mind. It galled, even though there was nothing at all going on between him and Danny, to have Bradford look at him like he’d won some game Casey hadn’t even known they were playing; to feel exposed in his ignorance, because in all the years they’d known each other he’d never thought Dan might be seeing men on the sly.

Well: that wasn’t entirely true. The thought had crossed his mind, years back. Back when Danny was long-haired and a little more effeminate, a little more open with his easy touches and flirtatious forays towards men and women alike. But that was just Dan being friendly, being funny: Casey had never seen it come to anything, and Dan had only ever mentioned his involvement with women. And as time went on and his hair got shorter and his wardrobe got more buttoned-up, more camera-ready for a viewership of mostly straight sports fans, Casey had forgotten he’d ever harbored questions about Danny’s sexual preferences at all. 

“Pasta.” Danny tapped his plastic menu on the tabletop. “I need pasta. Heaps of it. Or maybe a burger. Do you want to get a bunch of stuff to split?”

“Uh, sure.” Casey felt out of place in every way; too stuffy by far in the button-down and jacket he’d worn to the show, and wrong-footed by the evening’s events. The way Dan wasn’t quite making eye contact and seemed like he’d just downed three cups of coffee wasn’t helping put Casey at ease, but he chalked it up to post-show adrenaline and the fact that Dan hadn’t counted on Casey finding out quite so much about how his time doing _Hamlet_ had really been tonight. 

They ordered a random assortment of dishes along with beers, making stilted conversation about the good reviews for the show and which of Dan’s acquaintances had come to see it so far, but when the food came Dan barely ate. “I thought you were starving,” said Casey, over his own mishmash of salad and pita, with hummus and tahini on the side. 

Dan glanced over, his beer midway to his lips. “Hmm? Oh, yeah.” He set down the bottle and picked up his fork to poke at a piece of penne. “My eyes were bigger than my stomach, I guess.”

Casey had seen Dan eat lightly before, or not eat at all, when he was feeling nervous. But he hadn’t known him to do it for years. “Danny. Are you okay? You seem—a little off.”

The corner of Dan’s mouth quirked upwards. “Because I had a male co-star in my dressing room instead of a woman?”

“No, I—come on. You know I don’t care about that.”

Dan studied him, and Casey willed the words to be true. It wasn’t that he was homophobic. He had no qualms about Danny, a full-grown adult, doing whatever he wanted with whomsoever he chose. But he _had_ been surprised, and there was something about the scene, the shock, that was still galling him, like an itch he couldn’t properly scratch. “You don’t,” said Danny, with a strange finality. “Okay. So what do you mean, I’m off?”

Casey used a forkful of crunchy salad as a means of delaying his answer, trying to figure out a way to voice his concerns to Danny in a way that wouldn’t sound crazy. “It’s just—this role. It seems like it’s taking a toll on you. I don’t know, onstage—it felt like you were in trouble. I know it’s acting, I know that’s your job, but it felt like—seriously, Dan, just tell me you’re okay. I know I’m being paranoid. But I need to know you’re doing fine, right now.”

Danny stared at him. Casey thought he might laugh, or scoff, changing the subject and denying all of Casey’s instincts. But he didn’t. He picked his beer bottle back up, thumbing the label, and took a sip before he spoke. “Case…do you believe in ghosts?”

“What?”

Dan’s eyes were unfocused. He’d only had half a beer, and Casey wondered, with a sudden drop in his stomach, if there was any chance Dan was mixing. If he’d consumed any other substances tonight. “The Torah forbids seances. Did you know that? Of course you didn’t know that, they don’t make them more goyishe than you. But what do you do if a ghost just shows up? It’s not your fault, then, right?”

Casey was starting to get the chills. The weird pink and orange lighting of the place and the inexplicable portrait of Vivien Leigh over Danny’s head wasn’t helping: everything looked a little surreal, and Danny still wasn’t quite himself, with liner still ringing his huge, dark eyes. “Dan…what are you talking about?” He took a breath, making himself ask the question he’d been trying to suppress in his own mind. “Are you high?”

Dan’s fingers tapped along the edge of the bottle. “I am…on a regimen of prescribed sleeping and daily living aids. Which I’ve been assured are perfectly safe in combination.”

“With alcohol?”

Dan smiled without warmth. “I guess we’ll find out.” He went to lift his beer to his lips again, and Casey reached out, stilling him with a hand on his wrist.

“Hey. Look at me.” Danny did, and he still looked half-Hamlet: wild-eyed, despairing, on the edge of irreparably damaging action. “Why are you talking about ghosts? Is this because of the play?”

Dan didn’t put down his beer; he just let Casey’s fingers linger there, arresting his wrist in mid-air. “Dreams,” he finally said, low enough that Casey almost couldn’t hear it over the sounds of scraping silverware and late-night chatter all around them. “I’ve been having dreams. They started—when I started doing the scenes where I see my father’s ghost. Ozan—he was really pushing me to _see_ it. To imagine what it would be like if someone I loved came back and started haunting me. Guilting me, about what happened to them.”

Casey got it, all at once. His fingers tightened on Danny’s wrist. “Oh, God. So you started dreaming—”

“About Sam.” Danny nodded. “Every night. He shows up, and—talks to me. Just talks. But they’re so _real_.” Danny’s fingers were shaking, and Casey laced his own through them, just to stop the tremble there. “They’re so real, and I had to—it’s complicated, because of my other medications. But they’ve got me on a cocktail, and it’s working, I’m sleeping—some, I’m sleeping—some.”

Casey searched his face. “But…it’s fine, right? You’re safe. It’s safe. It’s not like—” _Ledger_ , he didn’t say, because Danny knew. Danny had to know. It had been less than two months since Heath Ledger died of acute drug intoxication from his own mixture of pain and sleeping aids. It had sent shockwaves through the media, through Hollywood, and Casey couldn’t imagine there was a single person in Danny’s cast ignoring its warning. Ledger had been one of the most promising young actors out there, and his final role had killed him: or at least that was the story, if you took the news coverage at face value. 

Dan seemed to see their hands then, intertwined. He’d had a dazed look, like he was seeing right through Casey, through the food on the table, through the other diners behind him: like everything in sight wasn’t quite real, or at least not as real as the phantoms that were plaguing him. He withdrew his grip from Casey’s carefully, looking up into Casey’s eyes and forcing a smile. “It’s fine. Yeah, it’s…it’s fine. The rehearsals—they were the roughest. But it’s over now. I’ve got it. Who Hamlet is, why he—snaps. I’ve got it. There’s nowhere else I need to push. I’ll be okay. I’ve still got a therapist.” He straightened up a little, running a hand through his messy hair. “And it was good, right? The show was good.”

“Danny—“ Casey almost didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to encourage the coping mechanisms and unhealthy behavior that had produced the on-stage result. But he couldn’t lie. “It was phenomenal. _You_ were—phenomenal.”

Dan smiled for real then, the grin breaking across his face. For a moment he looked like his old self, like he had at twenty-eight or twenty-two or nineteen, eager to please and thrilled for even the smallest bit of recognition from Casey or from whoever else would give it to him. “Good. At least all the work—at least it’s been worth it.”

_It’s not worth your life_ , Casey thought, but he bit his tongue. He started picking at his food again, and after a few awkward minutes of near-silence they moved on to other topics: gossip about Dan’s castmates, about the show, about Charlie and Lisa. Not about Tom. Dan didn’t mention him, except in passing, and Casey didn’t voice the questions he so desperately wanted to ask: _How? When? Why didn’t you tell me? How long has this been going on?_

He walked Dan home at the end of the night, afraid of how fragile he looked. Dan was subletting a place on Bleecker to be closer to the show, and because his lease had been up and he wanted to move anyway. Casey was trying not to pressure him too hard into considering Midtown, because it sucked to live in for all but three reasons: the transportation links; proximity to the Theater District; and the fact that Casey was there. He’d actually see Danny if Dan was back in the neighborhood. They could hang out after their late-night commitments, just like in the old days. He’d bring it up again when the subject was a little less sensitive, when the show was done. He’d tried to get Danny to stay closer then.

“Call me if you need anything,” he said, leaving Danny at his building, and Danny promised he would. There wasn’t much else to say, short of trying to kidnap Danny and keep him somewhere Casey could keep checking on him. So he left, and took the subway home.

Back at his apartment, when he finally got into bed, it took Casey a long time to get to sleep. He kept thinking about Danny, seeing Sam. He kept thinking about Tom, entering the scene from Danny’s dressing room. He kept thinking about all of these things, and wondering why he couldn’t stop thinking about them at all.

* * *

Everyone else went to see Danny’s show over the next week: Natalie, Dana, Kim. No one else reported any anxiety over Dan’s performance, his appearance. No one else mentioned Tom Bradford. Casey had almost convinced himself he’d been worrying over nothing when Danny called him a few minutes after he’d gotten out of the eight o’clock rundown. 

“Hello?” The voice on the other end was unfamiliar. A woman’s. _That’s right_ , Casey thought, _Danny can’t be calling me now. He’s onstage. So why does this woman have his phone_?

“Hello? Who is this?”

“It’s Loretta. I’m the stage manager—at Danny’s show. I’m—” There was clamor in the background, and Casey pushed the phone closer to his ear, trying to make out her words. “It was the nearest phone. And I knew you were his contact, I’d seen it on the forms, but I’d have to go look through them and I thought—I knew he’d have you in here. So I’m sorry to do it like this, I’m sure the hospital will call you, but—“

Casey’s hand moved of its own accord, crumpling up the notes he held. “What hospital? What do you mean, they’ll call me?”

The woman—Loretta—said something muffled, responding to someone who was speaking to her off the phone. Then her voice came back on the line, crystal clear. “You’re his emergency contact. Danny’s emergency contact. They’re taking him to NewYork-Presbyterian. Do you want me to—“

Casey was already on his feet, grabbing his coat and running out the door, before she could finish the sentence. 


End file.
